Roses Can Bloom Amidst Thorns, But Not In Darkness

Two things that everyone must know about me. First, I hate the cold. Second, I have a semi-chronic condition of being cold all the time.  I feel my situation is a cruelty handed to me by none other than the Fates. Now with most of life's cruelties we have two options. First, we can complain about our situation and hope that one day the Fates' hearts will soften from their stony enclave hidden inside their chest thereby removing this cruelty from our lives...Or, the second option is that we can work in spite of our cruelty, our thorn in the flesh, and bloom as a rose would, amidst the thorns.

I have recently learned a profound lesson from my seemingly small cruelty of being cold. It happened on a beautiful Saturday. I had gotten up and finished all of my schoolwork by mid-morning and was looking forward to spending the rest of the day doing my heart's desire. Unfortunately, my thorn was going to stand in the way of that. You see the temperature in my apartment was around 53 degrees...much to cold for a house plant like myself. My nose had started to form icicles on its end and my fingers and toes looked as if I had a family of Smurfs living on them. I sat complaining about the temperature while huddled under my blanket knowing that eventually I would be accused of smoking due to my frozen exhalations.  

All of a sudden an idea, no, an inspiration came to me that enabled me to pluck the thorn from my flesh for a time. I threw off my blanket, took off my shoes and socks, picked my blanket back up and marched out my front door to greet the 75 degree sunshine. I laid my blanket on the lawn plopped right on top of said blanket and started to bask in the light and warmth provided by the sun. It didn't take long for me to thaw and then fall into a blissful nap. I awoke to the sounds of birds singing merrily and cars passing me.  As I lay on my blanket I realized that for the first time in since I had moved back I was actually warm, even borderline hot. It felt so comforting to simply lay in the sunshine and be warm.

I looked back at my house and saw a lonely cold shell of brick and it seemed to me a shroud against light and warmth. How could I stay in a place like that, I thought to myself. A place so devoid of color, light, or warmth. More importantly, how had I not noticed it before? Had I been wrapped in its darkness so completely that I thought it was light? How could that happen (and I don't mean to sound pompous, but I probably do) especially to me? I have a very healthy opinion of myself and love to think that I rival Mary Poppins at being practically perfect in every way (I am completely joking, I know Mary Poppins is way out of my league). Anyway, this course of thought lead me to a much deeper concept.

How many of us are in the cold darkness of ignorance freezing and cursing, pleading for someone to pull us into the light and warmth of truth?

To quote the finale of a famous musical that is based on Victor Hugo's novel of unparalleled beauty, Les Mierables:

Do you hear the people sing,
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing toward the light 

For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise.

These lines evoke an image in my mind's eye of people dressed only in rags that are tattered and torn, their hair is matted against their head from their perspiration, they are on the ground clawing their way forward to the light, giving everything they have to this supreme effort to cast off the darkness. I look into their eyes, the windows of their soul, and see a resolution that is unbreakable; they seem to know that if they stay in the darkness any longer they will shrivel and die. We can see in nature this same determination, plants will grow in whatever way possible to get light. If they need to grow horizontally for a while they will. If they need to grow upside down to find light they will. Why? Because without light they will die. We are no different.

We can bloom in spite of our thorns. We can even bloom so well that our thorns become accents of beauty and character. The road of blooming is perhaps long with precipices that need crossing and mountains that need scaling, rivers that need fording and oceans that need sailing. Despite all of fates' thorns we can bloom beautifully. Thorns never were the obstacle. The obstacle lies in casting out darkness and moving toward light.

Our thorns have been given to us by fate; we cannot change them. Our only choice is to live in the light of truth or die in the darkness of ignorance. When will we desire light with the same ferocity as, "the wretched of the earth"? When will we crawl in rags as starving destitutes toward the light? When will we throw off our blanket and leave the shroud of darkness behind us and embrace the world of light and truth and warmth? I hope it is a question of "when" and not "if" and I hope the answer the answer is now.

Roses can bloom amidst thorns, but not in darkness.

 

The thorn photo is compliments of Erik Noeske.